Monthly Archives: June 2011

I have been organising things to do with the MoodleMoot, since I am the onsite coordinator at Unitec. Been making sure we have rooms, wireless, tables, catering, prodding people for submissions, providing maps, calling schools… MoodleMoot looks like it’ll be really interesting this year! If you haven’t heard about it, or are interested in attending, please visit the site (linked above).

I have sucessfully managed to set up my very own OpenSim island (only locally on my machine) and after some experimentation even managed to get the SLOODLE tools rezzed and hooked up to my Moodle site. I will keep working on this, and when I have something to show I will link it here. I have also been working on the interface that I have in SecondLife in preparation for my presentation at the MoodleMoot.

I’ve been co-facilitating courses on MoodleBites, specifically the MoodleBites for Teachers and MoodleBites for Administrators courses. I am hoping to really up my work on the MoodleBites for Theme Designers course soon, as well.

Moving house

On a personal level… I moved house a month ago. Moved into our very first own home! We’re having a house-warming party this Saturday. We’re getting our couch back tomorrow (it has been off to the manufacturer being repaired). That’ll be nice, actually having somewhere to sit again in the living room. We had even converted our Ottoman into a make-shift seat.

Ok, so someone on my Twitter radar posted something about Kitely, and so I went and created my own virtual world in OpenSim to play around in. It keeps crashing when I change textures at the moment, so I will keep playing later. But looks really really good!

So I thought I would also find some other resourcesto do with OpenSim, as when I arrived in my newly created world I had the scary white-eyed zombie look, so I quickly went in search of eyeball textures and then hair textures and got completely sidetracked… haha.

It’s time for me to head home, but I will be looking into linking this OpenSim environment with SLOODLE on my test Moodle site. Will see how we go.

I remember doing homework – some I hated, some I actually enjoyed. The homework that I remember most fondly were some A-Z sheets that my Form 1/2 (that is Year 7 and 8) teacher made (or got from somewhere). They were fascinating, contained lots of little activities that extended my knowledge in unexpected and interesting ways. I learned new words, a little bit of history, famous people… good general knowledge. They didn’t necessarily have to do with what we were studying at school, but we were studying enough of that at school. It was fun to be given something different and eclectic to do at home.

Homework I remember despising included stuff that I saw as pointless. Colouring. Endless repetition of stuff I already knew.

So I don’t believe all homework is evil and pointless. But most does seem to be there merely… to fill time. As if children shouldn’t have time to be children. And not all teachers like homework, either. It means even more marking! So whose bright idea is this homework thing? Not sure, but they should be taken somewhere quiet and dealt to. 😉

Some very interesting articles on homework lie within (hmmm hyperlink button isn’t working –> http://stager.tv/blog/?p=2112 ). Not all I agree with, but they do all give their valid viewpoints.